Two members of the British activism group Youth Demand were arrested at the National Gallery in London this morning, October 9, after pasting a photo of a mother and child from Gaza over Pablo Picasso’s “Motherhood (La Maternité)” (1901) and dumping red paint on the floor. The artwork was not damaged, the museum said.
The pair of activists who affixed the photo to the protective glass over Picasso’s artwork are National Health Services worker Jai Halai, 23, and Politics and International Relations student Monday-Malachi Rosenfeld, 21. They used a photo of a Gazan mother sobbing and clinging to her young son whose face was covered in blood, taken by Palestinian journalist Ali Jadallah during the Israeli airstrikes on Al-Shifa Hospital in March.
Within seconds, museum security apprehended Halai and wrenched him away from the artwork after pulling the photo off the picture.
Halai began chanting “Free, free Palestine,” as security pulled him out of the gallery by his shirt and arm and pressed him up against the threshold until police arrived. Rosenfeld sat on the floor, dumping red paint from a bag in front of the Picasso work as a second museum security worker called for assistance on a walkie-talkie.
“The UK is complicit in genocide,” both Halai and Rosenfeld said on video amid the commotion unfolding in Room 43.
A spokesperson for the National Gallery confirmed to Hyperallergic that “police attended and arrested the pair,” there were no damages sustained to the painting, frame, or floors, and the room re-opened to the public at 2:30pm.
“I’m taking action with Youth Demand because at this point it’s been over one year of seeing my colleagues in the healthcare field decimated,” Halai shared in a recorded testimony regarding his participation. “Decimated by bombs, by bullets and by having to operate, with no medical equipment, on starved children.”
“We need a two-way arms embargo on Israel now; 87% of the British public want this and never before have they been more disillusioned with our government and political class who do not represent us,” Halai continued. “We need a revolution in our democracy.”
Rosenfeld shared that they participated “because as a Jew, I feel like it’s my duty to call out the genocide being committed in Gaza.”
“I want the world to know this isn’t in the Jewish name and I want to see a free Palestine,” Rosenfeld said in a video statement. “When [Prime Minister] Keir Starmer says Britain stands with Israel, he’s wrong. We know very well that this is a genocide, not ‘self-defense,’ and we as the people of Britain say enough is enough.”
Last month, the UK suspended 30 of its 350 arms export licenses to Israel — specifically components for military aircrafts including fighter jets, helicopters, and drones. However, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy specified an exemption for the export of components for F-35 fighter jets, which Israel has been using to drop bombs in Gaza.
British Defense Secretary John Healey rejected French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for an arms embargo in Israel earlier this week, saying, “No, we work a different system.”
